


Fallen: The Beginning of the End

by beetle



Category: Christian Bible (New Testament), Original Work
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, And it's All Heaven's Fault, Angels, Antichrist, Apocalypse, Archangel Gabriel, Boys In Love, Demons, Depression, Earth Just Lost the War, Enemies to Lovers, Fallen Angel, Fallen Angel Azazel, Fallen Angel Lucifer, First Kiss, First Time, First Time Blow Jobs, First Time Bottoming, Friends to Lovers, Guardian Angel, Heaven, Heaven vs Hell, Hell, Idiots in Love, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Torture, It's All Gabriel's Fault, M/M, Malakim, Nephilim, Pre-Apocalypse, The beast - Freeform, damnation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-26
Updated: 2014-06-26
Packaged: 2018-02-06 07:47:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,887
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1850110
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beetle/pseuds/beetle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Guardian angel Ishim of the Malakim lets the mission--guiding and positively influencing the anti-Christ--slip in possibly the worst way. Or . . . <i>does</i> he? In any event, his slip gains the attention of and does not impress his superiors, resulting in censure and just <i>maybe</i> . . . the Apocalypse.</p><p>Written for the prompt(s): “I don’t get it.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fallen: The Beginning of the End

**Author's Note:**

  * For [badskippy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/badskippy/gifts).



> Notes/Warnings: Non graphic sex scene.
> 
> Written with the wonderful BadSKippy in mind. It's not the vampire fic, not yet, but I'm getting there :-)

* * *

 

“I don’t get it.”            

           

I hung my head, shaking it a little. Patrick could be so  _dense_ , sometimes. “What’s not to get, Paddy-me-boyo?”

 

“Oh, I dunno. Maybe the part where my best friend tells me he’s a freaking  _angel_ , that  _I’m_  the anti-Christ, and expects me to believe him!”

 

I sat back in Patrick’s beanbag couch and nimbly took the joint from his clearly nerveless fingers, before it fell and the whole fire-trap apartment building went up. “Well, it’s the truth. I’m an angel. I’m part of one of the choirs known as the  _Malakim_. I—and many others, besides—am called Ishim.”

 

“Isham Malachim is your name, you choad.” Patrick made a grab for the joint and I held it out of reach. At six and a half feet tall, I had the arm-length to do so easily . . . especially now that he was good and baked.

 

“No,  _Isham Malachim_  is my Earthly alias. In Heaven,  _Ishim of the Malakim_  is my rank and choir.”

 

“Uh-huh. Gotcha.” Patrick finger-gunned me, rolled his eyes, and sagged back in the beanbag’s clammy embrace.

 

“Okay, wing-boy, say I believe all the stuff you just told me. The whole Magilla. Why would you tell me, now? Or at all? Aren’t I the enemy of puppies and democracy and all that’s good and pure?”

 

I sighed and took a drag off the joint out of habit. Unfortunately, my angelic constitution was as immune to pot as it was to alcohol. The only thing that got me high was unwavering obedience to the Throne.

           

(And caffeine, but I wasn't allowed to imbibe after a certain incident in 1917, Spain, in which I may have made a miracle happen on a dare from an equally inebriated Uzziel. A miracle that was witnessed by about 30,000 people.)

           

“No, you’re not. You’re a Nephilim: a child of a human woman and an archangel— _Fallen_ archangel, that is.  _The_  Fallen archangel. And _I_ was sent to keep watch on you till such a time as you come into your powers.” I paused significantly. “That time is  _soon_. Soon, you  _must_ choose a side in the eternal war between good and evil. That is . . . choose to fight on the side of the angels . . . or stand by your father’s side.”

           

“My father’s  _not evil_ —you met him! He owns a pet-supply chain, for Chrissakes!”

           

I shook my head. “Not your adoptive father. Your  _true_  father: Lucifer . . . the Morning-Star.”

           

“Oh, that’s right. I forgot.” Patrick laughed, his glassy, amused eyes rolling toward a photo of us on his bookshelf. It’s from our freshman year in college—our very first weekend as roommates. In the photo, we’re staring each other down over a chessboard in our old dorm room (It’d taken more computer work than I was comfortable with to make sure I’d gotten a room assignment with Patrick, instead of with Julian Yang of Rhinebeck, New York, but I'd managed, just in time). My hair—long, even back then, and all over my head in riotous curls—was obscuring my face, but it was obvious I was meeting Patrick's merry, stoned eyes. And under his mop of auburn fringe, that relaxed, hazel gaze was even with my dark, probably disapproving one. “So, you’re saying that for the past five years, you’ve been—what? Babysitting me, making sure I don’t stray to the dark side, and  _now_  it’s time for me to pick my colors?”

           

“Essentially.”

           

“Why _now_ , though?” He didn’t believe me. Not at all. He was just playing devil’s advocate, no pun intended, philosophy major that he was.

           

“Because the legions of Hell are ready to wage their war on the Throne, and through _you_ , they plan to win the Earth, first. The Earth and as many souls thereon as they can,” I added gravely. “This new arm of the battle is  _imminent_. Hell will be sending an emissary to you very soon.  _That_  is why I’ve told you the truth at last. Because you need all the information you can get to prepare yourself, and make an informed decision.”

           

“By which you mean choose  _your_  side,” Patrick said wryly, his bleary eyes settling on me once more. But for all they were bleary, they seemed to be present, at last. He was listening and retaining what I said, though not believing it.

           

“By which I mean . . . choose the side that makes the most sense to you.”

           

“ _Your_  side, you mean,” Patrick asserted again and rather pointedly, giving me a measuring look. He was right. My . . .  _side_  made more sense for him than his father’s. Patrick was kind, good-hearted, and sensitive. The Princes of Hell would chew him up and spit him out. “You’d probably do just about anything to get me on Heaven’s side, wouldn't you?”

           

I frowned. “That’s not how Heaven works. You must choose your side for your own informed reasons. It’s not up to  _us_  to tempt you. That’s Hell’s job.”

           

For a moment, Patrick looked stunned. And stung. He even sat back, glassy eyes wide and hurt for some reason I couldn’t identify. Even though I’d spent most of my existence watching humans, specific and nonspecific, the particulars of their moods still sometimes threw me for a loop.

           

“Well, whatever,” Patrick finally said, looking away then leaning forward and reaching for the old cigar box with his stash and his rolling papers. It held a place of pride on his secondhand coffee table. “This is all bullshit, anyway. I don’t believe in Heaven or Hell, I don’t believe in the Devil, and I sure as  _shit_  don’t believe in  _God_.”

           

“Regardless,” I murmured, reaching out to put a hand on his shoulder. Patrick shivered hard and I let my hand fall away. “ _They_  believe in  _you, Paddy-me-boyo_. Very much so. And so do I.”

           

In the midst of fumbling opening his plastic baggie of kind, Patrick looked at me, his auburn brows raised and his hazel eyes wide in his pale, scruffy face. I smiled automatically. Occasional forays into mule-stubborn denseness aside, Patrick was my favorite human—well, part-human—ever. I  _did_  believe in him. There was only one thing I believed in more. 

           

I tried to let my faith in him, in his mind and heart, shine through me so that he could see that in me—in  _my_  side—here, at last, was something and someone that would put complete faith in him.

           

Patrick stared at me, and swallowed, eyes widening in alarm. “You’re . . . dude, you’re  _glowing_ ,” he mumbled, blinking like a man waking from a dream. “Like,  _literally_  glowing.”

           

Frowning again, I looked down at myself. There was, indeed, a mellow sort of glow emanating from my skin, just bright enough to shine through my off-white Henley and jeans, even.

           

“Huh,” I said, and look up, smiling again. Patrick still looked . . . gobsmacked. But then he was reaching out to brush curious, hesitant fingers across my cheek. His touch was gentle, almost tender, and his fingers smelled of pot and mint.

           

Then Patrick was surging forward, making a soft, desperate sound low in his throat just as his lips touched mine, briefly, but passionately.

           

“Patrick—” I started, about to add a  _no_  after his name, but he was already kissing me again. And it was . . . interesting. I’d never been kissed before, but it was . . . I . . .  _liked_  it. Liked the way it tingled and teased and sent bolts of— _something_  shooting throughout my body like urgent alarums. I liked the way Patrick’s hands were cupping my face, and the agile way his tongue insinuated itself between my lips, to tickle and tempt mine.

           

Then his hands were sliding down to my neck, then my shoulders, then my chest, and he was pushing me down to the beanbag couch, his body shifting and moving with mine so that he was lying on top of me. His weight felt . . . good and right. Warm and solid on my body, even though I could have easily lifted him off me with one hand.

           

Patrick’s kisses wended their way to my neck and throat, interspersed with little bites that stung and felt amazing at the same time.

           

“I’ve been wanting to do this since the first time I saw you,” he was mumbling against my throat, between kisses and hickeys. “You were glowing back then, too, just . . . not literally. You were—and  _are_ —beautiful. The most beautiful person I’ve ever met, inside and out.”

           

I leaned my head back against the couch as my arms wrapped around his neck of their own volition. “I’m not beautiful. I’m simply me,” I said, and Patrick sat up just enough to look down into my eyes. His own were awed and molten.

           

“ _Simply_   _you_  is all I’ve wanted for the past five years.” Patrick cupped my face in his hands again and kissed me. It was  _so_  sweet, and . . . I felt something in me shift and settle—like a compass finding magnetic north. Only . . . I knew what my magnetic north was: the Throne.

           

That was the only magnetic north I’d ever had or needed, right?

           

When Patrick let me up for oxygen I didn’t need, he balanced himself on one arm, and shifted and wriggled around against me, looking into my eyes, searching them. My own widened, this time, when I realized that he wasn’t just wriggling against me, he was . . .  _thrusting_ against me, and he was hard.

           

“Oh,” I said, feeling quite naïve and lost, for some reason—two things I’ve never felt in all of my existence.

 

Patrick smiled and leaned down to nuzzle my neck. “Don’t tell me angels don’t do this.”

           

“I—I’m sure some angels _do_ ,” I exhaled, thinking of the other Nephilim and their descendants as Patrick began pushing up my shirt. I was  _quite_  sure some angels had gotten a taste for sexual dalliances back in the day, when we walked freely and openly among humans. Back when we’d mingled with them and Nephilim were not so hidden. I, however, observer and watcher, had never . . . _mingled_ with humans in such a way. “I just wasn’t one of them.”

           

“You’re . . . a  _virgin_?” Patrick asked, sitting up, startled and smiling a little. I could feel a scowl forming on my face.

           

“I’m . . . yes, I am.” I tilted my face up proudly. My pride has always been my besetting sin. “But I’ve seen humans having sex before. I know what comes next.”

           

Patrick’s smile widened, and turned wry and amused. “Do you, now?” He pushed my askew Henley up and bent to kiss my chest, his tongue flicking in and out as he kissed, licked, and nipped a trail to the place where my heart beat. He pressed more kisses to that spot and nuzzled it, until I’d closed my eyes and was simply enjoying the most pleasurable sensations I’d ever known.

           

The most pleasurable, at least, until his teeth, playful but precise, closed on my nipple.

           

I threw my head back, a long, wavering cry on my lips as I shook and shuddered and more bolts of pleasure shot through me, straight from nipple, to my groin, and for the first time ever, I felt a . . . stirring there, the likes of which I’d never felt before. It tingled and burned, and urged and sought. Sought for  _what_  I didn’t know until Patrick started wriggling again and cloth-covered, hardened flesh came into contact with my own. I made that same wavering cry again, this time choked and stuttered.

 

Patrick was chuckling as he kissed his way down my chest and abdomen, to my waistband, and looked up the length of my body at me. My eyes felt like they were about to roll right out of their sockets, so wide-open were they.           

           

Still grinning, Patrick began unbuttoning and unzipping my jeans. “Been wanting this for so long, I can’t believe I’m finally gonna  _get_  it.”           

           

I swallowed, and blushed for the first time ever. _I_ couldn’t believe he was going to get it, either. I mean, some angels may have done this, but  _I_  . . . I  _didn’t_  . . . right? No matter how much I might have  _wanted_  to,  _I didn’t_. And certainly not with a possible enemy—though it hurt me to think of  _Patrick_  that way—a Nephilim, and the anti-Christ. For all I knew such an act with Patrick could get me censured, or . . . or see me cast out among the Fallen. It could . . . it could have some dire consequences that I, low-ranked among angels, could not foresee.

           

But Patrick was smiling at me, his eyes warm with affection and heated with desire, and in that moment . . . I didn’t care. For the first time in my long existence, I let my mission slip and my caution, years of planning, and guidance fall by the wayside.

           

“Do you . . . should I . . . be on my stomach?” I asked, blushing again. Patrick took my hand and squeezed it gently, bringing it to his lips to kiss my palm—so tenderly, my breath caught.

           

“That’d make it  _wicked_  difficult for me to suck your cock, Isham.”

           

I moaned as that urgent sensation in my groin increased exponentially. I didn’t even care that Patrick was still calling me by my human alias. I was shaking and moaning, trying to pull Patrick up into my arms by the hand that still held mine.

           

“Relax,” Patrick whispered in a puff of cool air that I felt even through the cotton of my boxer briefs. Boxer briefs which, along with my jeans, Patrick was tugging on. I took the hint and lifted up so he could drag the garments down my body—lifting them carefully over my erection then skinning them down my legs, stopping at my ankles.

           

Then he took off my sneakers, tossing the right, then the left shoe over his shoulders. One hit the wall, the other his bookshelf. Three books toppled off the over-burdened shelves and to the floor.

           

I laughed and Patrick laughed with me, before pulling my jeans and boxers the rest of the way off. They got tossed in the direction of the first sneaker.

           

Then Patrick was staring at me hungrily, almost worshipfully, which made me blush again.

 

“You’re so beautiful, that I can believe it, you know?” he murmured, glancing briefly at my eyes and smiling. “That you’re an angel.”

           

“I  _am_  an angel.”

           

“ _My_  angel?”

 

“Yes.”

           

Patrick’s eyes fluttered shut for a few moments, and when they opened again, he pushed my legs apart, so that one was pressed against the back of the couch and the other was hanging over the edge of it. Then he was lying between my spread legs and kissing the tip of my erection with teases of tongue and  _very_  gentle nips of his teeth.

           

And I . . . my head fell back and I didn’t say or think anything else for some time.

 

#

 

I didn’t usually sleep.

 

But this night was different for a lot of reasons, obviously. I woke up in a strange bed, cuddled up to someone, a strong heartbeat under my cheek and strong arms around me.

 

For a moment I was completely disoriented. Then I remembered . . . everything. And I smiled, settling back in Patrick’s arms, back over his heartbeat, as he snored softly. I ran my hand up his chest, my fingers scritching through his auburn chest hair, and I decided to let myself go back to sleep. It was an indulgence I was unable to resist, especially since I’d be doing it with Patrick.

_I think you’ve indulged yourself quite enough for one night . . . wouldn’t you say, Ishim?_

 

At the feel of another’s voice in my head, I bolted up and out of Patrick’s arms, searching the darkness—which wasn't dark at all, for me—and drawing the covers up over Patrick and myself. Patrick stirred and complained, before rolling onto his left side and resuming his snoring. I, meanwhile, waited for the interloper to show himself.

_How much trouble_ , I wondered,  _am I in, exactly?_

 

However much it was, Patrick was  _worth it_. I couldn’t believe differently and never would.

 

I resisted the urge, however, to look back at Patrick, who slumbered innocently on.  _I don’t regret what I’ve done,_  I thought into the darkness and at the entity I sensed only barely.

 

Whichever angel it was, I knew it must have been a powerful one. Maybe . . . maybe even an  _arch_.

 

“Fuck,” I muttered, in a moment of complete realization, no doubt transmitted by the angel or arch hovering so close to this plane of existence without quite manifesting. “Oh,  _fuck_.”

_Quite_ , the presence agreed, and before I could turn and look at Patrick one last time—before I could hug or kiss him good–bye, and feel his body against mine—the world went entirely white . . . before it was gone altogether.

 

But one thing became clear in that instant. Only one angel—one  _arch_ —had the power to yank another angel from the Earthly plane of existence, to the Heavenly one, without that angel’s permission.

_Gabriel_.

 

I was, in short, fucked.

 

#

 

Spring. Again.

 

The Earth was alive with its cyclical renewal. Green things shot up out of revitalized soil; birds sang tentatively, then more lustily as the warmer weather came and decided to stay a spell; the days grew longer and people grew friendlier, eschewing winter’s many layers for the one or two that the easier weather required.

 

Patrick Kennerly neither noticed, nor cared. He was sitting in his apartment, watching soccer, drunk off his ass, as usual, deaf and blind to the changes a year’s passing had wrought. Deaf and blind to everything that wasn’t the match up and his mostly finished bottle of Jim Beam, when there was a knock on his door.

 

This, in itself, was  _unusual_ , since most of his friends had despaired of him straightening out his life out months ago.  _No one_  knocked on Patrick’s door these days except Jehovah’s Witnesses, and word must’ve gotten around because even  _they_ ’d steered clear of his apartment, lately.

 

But this knock—polite, yet firm—spoke of someone who wouldn’t go away if Patrick didn’t answer. And he had the soccer game turned up so loud—all the better to drown out his thoughts—they _had_ to know someone was home.

 

Levering himself out of the beanbag couch, Patrick put down the bottle of Beam on the junky, rickety coffee table, and shuffled to the door, one eye still on the match-up, which spun slowly, almost nauseatingly, along with the rest of the room.

_You’re drinking too much, Paddy-me-boyo,_  he told himself, not for the first time, in a voice that sounded exactly like—

 

Before he opened the door, he leaned against it, trying to catch his suddenly lost breath. His mind went, for the first time in recent memory, to the night of which he’d promised himself he would  _never_  think.

 

To the name he swore he’d never  _say_  again, either aloud or in his head.

 

And yet it was the name his very soul cried out in a constant cacophony of pain, even as it offered up memories  _of_  that  _night_ —Isham’s face as he came, the scent and taste of his skin, the way he shuddered and moaned when Patrick made the first tentative, slow push  _in_  . . . the tigthheatflutterclench of Isham’s muscles around him in the moments of stillness between each thrust and withdrawal. . . .

_No,_  Patrick thought, closing the door on those memories for the hundred thousandth time, knowing full well that something would, sooner or later, come along and blast that door wide open again, when he least expected it.

 

Wiping his eyes, Patrick unlocked his front and opened it.

 

On his doorstep stood . . . someone who must’ve tripped and fallen out of the pages of  _GQ_ , so stylishly dressed was he, wearing a crimson suit that looked tailored,  _shining_  black Chelsea boots, crimson-framed sunglasses that looked like they cost more than Patrick’s rent, and sporting _Bulova_ time on his wrist.

 

A dazzling, self-assured smile parted perfect lips and revealed even, white-white teeth.

 

“Hi,” Mr.  _GQ_  said in a low, amused baritone that was nonetheless just  _slightly_  flame-y. Patrick’s brows drew together, but he said: “Hi,” right back. And as if a cue was given, Mr.  _GQ_  stepped into his personal space—into the apartment—stood on his tiptoes, wound his arms around Patrick’s neck, and kissed him hard.

 

It was a good few seconds before Patrick’s pickled brain could even begin to process, let alone rally. He hadn’t been kissed in over a year, since last spring . . . since Isham . . . disappeared from his bed, after they’d made love for the first—well, technically the fifth time. (Angels, it turned out, required precious little in the way of refractory time and apparently didn’t get sore).

 

And in the year-plus since Isham had disappeared, Patrick had only rarely been anything other than blind, stinking drunk. He’d flunked his way out of his Master’s program in fall, and out of his family’s good graces. He’d lost most of his friends due to his own unwillingness to get sober and stay that way.

 

But he really couldn’t help it. Drinking was the only thing that made life  _bearable_  anymore. They just _didn’t_ understand. _None_ of them did. Patrick’d had _Paradise_ . . . had held it in his arms . . . and then Paradise had abandoned him without so much as a:  _fuck you_.

 

In light of that, was it any wonder he drank and secluded himself from anything and everything that reminded him of that which he’d lost? Including his friends and most of the outside world? Was it any wonder there hadn’t been  _anyone_  since Isham? Not even just a simple  _kiss_?

 

“The fuck  _offa me_!” Patrick growled, shoving the  _GQ_  motherfucker away from him hard enough that the other man—a good deal more compact that Patrick’s brawny six foot three—hit the wall opposite Patrick’s door. Instead of an  _oof_  of suddenly expelled air, the other man laughed, and straightened out his fancy crimson suit and ran a hand over his wavy, slicked-back chestnut hair.

 

“Ouch?” he said then laughed in sheer delight. Patrick glared, clenching his fists.

 

“The fuck’re  _you_ , bro?”

 

Mr.  _GQ_  grinned and removed his sunglasses. The eyes revealed were . . . goat’s eyes, yellow, with the same kind of fucked-up pupils. And the corneas of his eyes were a brilliant, bloodshot scarlet, like the other man had smoked six bowls in rapid succession.

 

“My name’s Azazel,” he said, bowing slightly as he slipped the sunglasses away behind his pocket-square, his weird eyes never leaving Patrick. “And I’m here to tempt you with everything you’ve ever wanted.” That smile turned ironic. “Taketh you up to the high places, as it were, and sheweth you the world!”

 

Patrick blinked. Then sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Fuck. You’re  _not_  serious.”

 

“Never, if I can help it. But I also never lie.” Azazel drifted closer to Patrick, till he was near enough for Patrick to get a whiff of him: expensive cologne and, ever so faintly . . . what could only be brimstone. “Not when the truth is so much more  _fun_.”

 

“Isham said you’d come,” Patrick said, feeling surprised, but not  _really_. If there was a guy out there who might have possibly been an angel, what were the odds there  _wasn’t_   _a_  guy out there who might—in light off those fucked up eyes . . . assuming they weren’t contacts—possibly be a demon?

 

Patrick stared down into Azazel’s creepy eyes for long moments before stepping back and sweeping a hand out in welcome.

 

“Took you longer than I would’ve thought,” he said as Azazel strolled in, already undoing his expensive leather belt and making straight for the beanbag couch. He looked both wrong and right in Patrick’s space. Though more and more  _right_ , the more clothing he shed till, naked and perfect, smirking and hard, he stood in front of the couch, patiently waiting.

 

Shaking his suddenly clear head, Patrick closed the door to his apartment and walked toward the couch, unbuckling his own belt. “But what makes you think I’m gonna fuck you?” he asked, nonetheless.

 

Azazel grinned. “Just a hunch I have,” he said, glancing pointedly at Patrick’s crotch, laughing when Patrick did the same. Despite all the Beam he’d had, he was indeed standing at attention, and ready to rock and roll.

_Huh,_  he thought bemusedly, wondering when  _that_ ’d happened.

 

“At any rate, how else do you think we seal deals in Hell? A round of golf and martinis, after?” Azazel snorted. “Deals are sealed in  _flesh_  . . . and blood. And it’s a bonus for me, because I’ve never had a  _Nephilim_ , before,” he purred, as Patrick drew closer, stepping around the coffee table and reaching out to put a hand on Azazel’s narrow waist. The tan skin under his hand was smooth and  _hot_. Not too hot to  _touch_ , but any human being with a temperature that high would be very shortly dead . . . certainly not in such blithe spirits as Azazel.

 

Azazel’s freaky eyes fluttered shut as Patrick’s hand slid around to his ass to grip and squeeze.

  
“Who  _are_  you?” Patrick demanded in a hiss as his plaid shirt was ripped open, and Azazel leaned in to kiss his chest, one hand coming up to settle over Patrick’s heart.

 

“I told you: I am Azazel, first emissary of Hell. And I’ve come to tempt you . . . is it working?”

 

“ _Augh!_ ” Patrick gasped when a hot, and almost cruel hand closed around his cock.

 

“I’ll take that as a  _yes_ ,” Azazel smirked on Patrick’s chest and bit his left nipple hard enough that Patrick hissed in another breath. Hard enough that Patrick felt a trickle of blood run down his chest.

 

“Christ, not so goddamn  _hard_!”

 

“Oh, you don’t have to play coy with  _me_ , my Prince.” Azazel chuckled throatily, lapping at Patrick’s blood with obvious relish. “I know what you want. What you  _need_ , and won’t let yourself have . . . I know about desires you’d  _never_  share with your precious little angel.”

_Isham._  It always came back to godddamned  _Isham_. “Fuck—where is he? Where’s . . . the other side’s lackey?” Patrick asked through gritted teeth as that hot hand squeezed and stroked him.

 

“You mean Ishim of the Malakim?” Azazel laughed brightly. “Oh, he Fell, don’tcha know? The arches— _archangels_ , that is—voted to cast him out of their little club for consorting with the anti-Christ.” Snorting, Azazel’s strokes slowed, become a bit gentler, even as his voice dripped sardonic, surely _false_ sympathy. “That’s what angels  _get_  for fucking a Nephilim, let alone  _the_  Nephilim of  _all_  Nephilim, I suppose.”

 

Patrick opened eyes he hadn’t even been aware of closing and looked down into Azazel’s, his mind whirling. . . .

 

What if Isham  _hadn’t_  abandoned him that night? What if he’d been . . . summoned by his superiors and then . . . then  _cast out_ , as Azazel had said? What if Isham had been . . .  _kicked out of Heaven_? For letting Patrick—the supposed anti-Christ—make love to him?

 

“And what do  _demons_  who fuck a Nephilim get?” Patrick asked absently, pulling Azazel against him.

 

Smirk-smirk-smirk, went the demon in Patrick’s arms. “The fucking of their lives is reward in itself.”

 

Patrick smirked, too, but it was hard and mirthless. The foggy numbness of just a few minutes ago—of the past  _year_ —was gone like it had never been. “So Isham— _Ishim_  is . . . is back on Earth?”

 

Azazel shook his head. “Nope. Your angel is in Hell, my Prince: Every moment a lifetime, every hour an eternity.” He chuckled again, running his hand down Patrick’s back, singeing cloth as he did. “The boys’re having fun with  _that one_.”

            

Bottom dropping out of his stomach, revealing a yawning pit of horror and fear—not for himself, but for Ishim . . . his sweet, innocent,  _perfect_  Ishim . . . his  _angel_  . . . in  _Hell for the past year_ —Patrick caught Azazel’s hot hand and squeezed. He looked the emissary in his goat-eyes. “You know what I want.”

 

“I do.” Azazel nodded obediently, and despite himself, a bolt of lust rocked Patrick to his core. But he tamped it down, for the moment.

 

“Ishim of the Malakim free and on Earth, with me. And in return . . . I fight in your war, on your side.”

 

Azazel blinked, and closed his eyes briefly, the lids fluttering as his freaky eyes rolled behind them. Then they opened suddenly, and the emissary was smiling his dazzling smile. “Your father finds those terms acceptable.”

 

Shuddering, Patrick thought of his father—his  _real_  father, the only one he’d ever acknowledge as such—and looked away.

 

“Okay. So,  _is_  there a contract or something? Do I have to sign it in blood?”

 

Azazel turned Patrick’s face back toward his own and kissed him again, demanding and with more tongue than Patrick usually liked. “Wrong bodily fluid, baby,” Azazel whispered, turning to lead Patrick to the beanbag couch. Once there he got on his hands and knees, legs spread as wide as the couch would allow. He looked over his shoulder, his strange eyes flashing, his pointed tongue coming out to swipe those perfect lips. “Though if you wanna make me bleed, my Prince . . . I won’t complain.”

 

Pushing down and stepping out of his jeans and boxers—his poor, Fallen angel held firmly in his mind and heart—Patrick Kennerly approached his damnation—and the world’s—with a grim, but determined smile.

 

END

**Author's Note:**

> How'd I do at explaining the events/reasons behind the upcoming Apocalypse? Even the Antichrist has inciting incidents and _reasons_ , amirite?
> 
> If you like, please comment! And don't forget to tell aaaaaallll your friends. And [follow me on Tumblr](https://beetle-ships-it-all.tumblr.com/)!


End file.
